Date & time
Venue
RSA House, 8 John Adam St, London WC2N 6EZ
Contact
Event description
Join fellow alumni and Professor Sally Wheeler OBE, MRIA, FAcSS, FAAL, Pro-Vice Chancellor (International Strategy) and Dean of ANU College of Law, for a special networking evening in the heart of London.
Be inspired by ANU Law alumna, Jennifer Robinson (BAsSt, LLB (Hons) '06), in our unique discussion themed "Using the law as a tool for social and climate justice".
Moderated by Kieran Pender (BA (Hons) '16, LLB (Hons) '18), senior legal advisor at the International Bar Association, Jennifer’s in-conversation will give a global and comparative perspective on strategic human rights litigation, drawing from her own professional experiences – from West Papua to WikiLeaks – and what she has observed of successful cases and campaigns around the world to provoke a discussion and debate about what more could be possible.
Speakers
Featured Speakers
Jen is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London. She has a particular focus on international law, free speech and human rights, advising governments, media organisations, journalists, non-governmental organisations and activists. Her recent cases include defending Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, acting for the BBC World Service in UN engagement over the persecution of BBC journalists by Iran, acting for Vanuatu in the Chagos Islands case before the International Court of Justice, successfully challenging a sweeping anti-protest injunction obtained by a major multinational corporation and having the UK government’s fracking policy declared unlawful on the grounds the government failed to consider scientific developments in climate change.
She is passionate about using the law as a tool for social justice and to build power in movements for positive change – and to inspire more young lawyers into this work. To that end, Jen created a global human rights program – the Bertha Justice Initiative – which has invested millions in strategic litigation and education for the next generation of movement lawyers in 17 different countries. Committed to supporting this work at home in Australia, Jen is a founding board member of the Grata Fund, Australia’s first independent, crowd-sourced public interest litigation fund, which has funded key public interest legal challenges on climate, indigenous rights and freedom of information.
Jen sits on the boards of the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and the Bonavero Institute for Human Rights at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar.
Jen was an ANU University Medallist in Law and a Distinguished Scholar in Asian Studies. In 2013, she was recognised as the inaugural ANU Young Alumni of the Year.
Kieran is a senior legal advisor with the International Bar Association (IBA) Legal Policy and Research Unit, and a Visiting Fellow at The Australian National University (ANU) Centre for International and Public Law. He has led the IBA’s work on diversity and inclusion in legal workplaces, and is the author of Us Too? Bullying and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession (2019).
Kieran is a graduate of the ANU, where he was awarded the university medal. His academic work has been published in the Public Law Review, Sydney Law Review and Melbourne University Law Review, and he has spoken at the United Nations, World Bank, European Parliament and OECD.
Kieran is also a freelance journalist and has reported from four continents for The Guardian.